Seagate Introduces First Solid State Drive: 2.5" Pulsar, Up To 200GB

For a company with a 2TB hard drive and a serious chunk of market share in the overall storage sector, it's really tough to believe that it has yet to produce a solid state drive of its own. But sure enough, Seagate is still standing on the sidelines while OCZ, Kingston, Super Talent and a host of other outfits soak up the rays over in NAND land. Er, that was the case--until today.

The industry mainstay has just today introduced its very first SSD--years after SSDs first hit the market place and not a moment too soon from a consumer point-of-view. The company is angling this as the "first true enterprise-class SSD," and given its prominence in the enterprise storage sector, we fully understand why it is playing this card.

Designed specifically for enterprise blade and general server applications, the Pulsar drive uses single-level cell (SLC) technology, delivers up to 200GB capacity, and is built in a 2.5-inch small form factor with a SATA interface. It supposedly achieves a peak performance of up to 30,000 read IOPS and 25,000 write IOPS, 240MB/s sequential read and 200 MB/s sequential write, and its SLC-based design optimizes reliability and endurance and helps provide a .44% AFR rating with a 5-year limited warranty. As an additional safeguard, the Pulsar drive leverages Seagate’s enterprise storage expertise to protect against data loss in the event of power failure.

Select OEMs have been receiving samples of the drive since September, though exact pricing details are yet to be published. We're hoping that this is just the first of many SSDs to come from Seagate. The world needs more competition in the space if prices are ever going to settle down, and a company like Seagate could provide some serious downward pressure.

SEAGATE INTRODUCES ITS FIRST SOLID STATE DRIVE: PULSAR

SCOTTS
VALLEY, Calif. —December 8,
2009 — Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) today
introduced the Seagate® Pulsar™ drive, the first product in its new enterprise solid
state drive (SSD) family. Designed for enterprise blade and general server
applications, the Pulsar drive uses single-level cell (SLC) technology,
delivers up to 200GB capacity, and is built in a 2.5-inch small form factor
with a SATA interface. The Pulsar drive leverages Seagate’s 30 years of
leadership in meeting large enterprise customer needs in product development, qualification,
and support.

“Seagate is
optimistic about the enterprise SSD opportunity and views the product category
as enabling expansion of the overall storage market for both SSDs and HDDs,”
said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president, Sales, Marketing, and
Product Line Management. “Our strategy is to provide our customers with the
exact storage device they need for any application, regardless of the component
technology used. We are delivering on that strategy with the Pulsar™ drive, and
you can expect additional products in the future from Seagate using a variety
of solid state and rotating media components.”

The Pulsar SSD
delivers the necessary performance, reliability, and endurance to match the
application environments of enterprise blade and general servers. It achieves a
peak performance of up to 30,000 read IOPS and 25,000 write IOPS, 240MB/s
sequential read and 200 MB/s sequential write. Its SLC-based design optimizes
reliability and endurance and helps provide a .44% AFR rating with a 5-year
limited warranty. As an additional safeguard, the Pulsar drive leverages
Seagate’s enterprise storage expertise to protect against data loss in the
event of power failure.

Seagate began
shipping Pulsar units to select OEMs for revenue in September 2009. With
Seagate’s enterprise knowledge and expertise, OEMs have peace of mind knowing
that Seagate has the global enterprise systems, people and processes in place
to support their largest requirements.

“To deliver and serve the enterprise SSD marketplace
effectively, it is critical for suppliers to understand the needs of their
storage system customers with respect to design, manufacturing, supply chain
delivery, and support,” said Dave Reinsel, IDC group vice president. “With its
well-established OEM and eco-system relationships and a long history of serving
global storage OEMs, Seagate is in a unique position to fortify its leading
enterprise storage position with its entry into the enterprise solid state
storage market.”

As the worldwide
market leader in enterprise storage and the first enterprise HDD vendor to
deliver an enterprise-class SSD solution, Seagate brings credibility,
experience and leadership to this new market segment.

“The enterprise
SSD market is now primed and well-positioned for growth from both a revenue and
unit perspective, with Gartner estimating unit growth to double and sales to
reach $1 billion for calendar year 2010,” said Joseph Unsworth, research
director at Gartner. “Superior enterprise SSDs provide transformational capabilities
when optimized in storage and server environments.”

About Seagate

Seagate is the worldwide leader
in hard disk drives and storage solutions. Learn more at http://www.seagate.com

Copyright 2009 Seagate Technology LLC. All rights
reserved. Printed in USA. Seagate, Seagate Technology, the Wave logo and Pulsar
are trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or its
affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or
registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.When referring to drive capacity, one
gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes. Your computer’s operating system may
use a different standard of measurement and report a lower capacity. In
addition, some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions,
and will not be available for data storage. Seagate reserves the right to
change, without notice, product offerings or specifications.